


Old Citadels

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Denial of Feelings, Flirting, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Secrets, Sexual Content, Smoking, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 18:17:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6089761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The copper and the digger are sneaking around together for one thing and for one thing only.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Citadels

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fire_Sign](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Sign/gifts).



> Prompt: “These are my deepest secrets, guard them well.” (Jack/Bert)
> 
> Happy birthday, Firesign! ;)

_Let us break ranks from those who trek from progress._  
_Miss we the march of this retreating world_  
_Into old citadels that are not walled._  
      _– Wilfred Owen, “Strange Meeting” (1918)_

 

The back alleys of unnamed pubs and the interrogation room at City South got awkward, after a while. Jack couldn’t be seen at the one, and Bert had no excuse (he swore) for being at the other. And with Wardlow shuttered against its mistress’s return, and Bert’s boarding house landlady being the most suspicious woman on the planet, there was really only one thing for it.

If they’d trusted anyone enough to let them ask the question, either one of them would’ve said that there wasn’t much love lost between the two men. The copper and the digger were sneaking around together for one thing and for one thing only: a hard blow and a fast fuck, in the absence of the woman that both of them, to some degree or other, loved. Jack would have rolled his eyes and Bert would have snorted, if anyone had suggested that there were any softer feelings involved.

But there was something infinitely tender in the way Bert looked up at Jack while he was on his knees, his mouth stretched and his cheeks hollow as he sucked Jack off, something gentle and cherishing in Jack’s hands in Bert’s hair and on his shoulders when he pulled Bert up and reached for the Vaseline.

“That good?” Jack murmured against Bert’s back.

“Fuck, yes… ” Bert moaned softly as Jack pushed deeper into him. “You like that, Robinson?”

Jack hooked his hands under Bert’s arms and urged him down flat against the bed. He didn’t thrust, he just moved his hips with a smooth firm rhythm, and Bert moved with him, the motions grinding his aching cock against the sheets. “Bastard,” Jack said, biting delicately at the shell of Bert’s ear. “You know I do.”

Soon Jack’s fingers were clasped tightly with Bert’s, his cheek was pressed to Bert’s hair, and Bert had to muffle his helpless moans in the thin pillows when the climax tore itself from him, hard and fast like a bullet wound, where the sudden shock of physical release blotted out the sensations for a second or two, and the peak was all in the mind and the sound of Jack groaning as the muscles of Bert’s arse clenched even tighter around his cock. Then the rush of feeling hit, and Bert was shouting, coming, cursing, almost crying. Jack’s lips were warm and sloppy on his shoulder blade, and his sweat-damp chest slipped against Bert’s back. “Christ, Albert,” he gasped, his hips stuttering as he tried to slow down, to hold off his own climax for a little longer, just a little longer...

 _Jack... He never comes loud,_ Bert thought, weary and limp and thoroughly pleased. _Wish you would, Jack..._ In his thoughts was the only place where Bert felt safe calling him ‘Jack’, let alone asking him to let Bert hear him come. Didn’t seem right, otherwise. Still... _Wish you would._

Bert liked to smoke after a round in bed. Jack let him, which was another mark of how much he appreciated Bert’s company. “Care for a fag yerself?” the cabbie asked, offering the crumpled packet by bumping it against Jack’s arm.

Jack shook his head. “Used to smoke like a chimney when I was younger. Can’t stand the things now. They remind me too much of France. It’s the smell. Cheap tobacco and cordite and rotten feet.” Then he huffed softly. “Sorry. I’m shit at pillow talk.”

The brief flare of Bert’s match showed him Jack’s lopsided smile. “No worries, Inspector,” he chuckled round the paper cylinder. “Not like we’re here for cuddling.”

Having said that, though, he didn’t much mind when Jack rolled over and pressed up close to his side, throwing an arm across his chest. Bert focused on the burning end of his cigarette and breathed in the smells, not of cheap tobacco and trench foot, but of not-as-cheap-as-it-could’ve-been tobacco, the brown smell of bay rum and the sweet of carbolic soap, petroleum jelly with its lack of odor that was as greasy in the nose as it was on Jack’s cock, the thin salt of their cum, and the mingling scent of their sweat as it dried on their bare skins.

Jack buried his nose in Bert’s shoulder, trying to get away from the tobacco smell. His cock, soft now, pressed against Bert’s hip. “I can put this out, y’know,” Bert said mildly, “if it fusses ya that much.”

“No, it’s… it’s all right, Albert. Just try not to get ashes on the sheets.” His arm tightened around Bert. “They’re filthy enough as it is, thanks to you.”

Bert chuckled. “‘Ere, not my fault you buggered me so good I shot off without any help.”

“Is that meant to be a compliment?”

“Eh. Maybe.”

“It’ll do.” Jack inched up and pressed a series of soft, quick kisses to the side of Bert’s neck, suckling the stubbly flesh lightly.

“You okay?”

“Hmm. Just thinking. We’ve been going at this for a while… longer than I expected.”

“Can’t say I ever expected it at all,” Bert grunted, sliding his arm around Jack’s shoulders. He took a long drag from his cigarette, held the smoke in for a bit and then let it out slowly, and finally felt about on the nightstand to stub out the end in the empty condom tin. “But you damn near saved my life. So if this is how yer about t’ tell me t’ clear off... well, I’ve got no regrets.”

Jack rose up on his elbow and kissed Bert firmly, though there was a slight flinch when he caught the smell and taste of the fresh tobacco smoke. “No regrets, eh, Albert?”

“Not a one. Funny, innit? Never thought it’d be you... bet you never thought it’d be me here.”

“Better here than doing ten to fifteen hard labour for breaking the sodomy laws,” Jack muttered, pulling Bert closer.

That was how it had started, after all. With Jack giving Bert a choice, after he’d been picked up for soliciting. Risk a trial and a prison sentence that might well kill him, or promise that the next time he got the urge to be ridden sore, he would come to Jack. Bert had looked, and longed, for years, and never once suspected that the desires he harboured in secret would be shared by a man he had once thought of as a misguided nuisance at best, and at worst, as a traitor to his class.

Bert tugged at Jack’s hips. “So. This mean I get t’ stay the rest of the night, at least?”

“I’m not telling you to go anywhere,” said Jack gruffly. “Not right now, at least.” He moved to straddle Bert’s waist. “Not while you’re naked and sweaty and greasy in my bed.”

“Right where ya want me, Inspector?” Bert cheeked, nipping Jack’s lips.

“Hmm... for the moment, Albert.” Jack dipped his head and swiped his tongue up the line of Bert’s throat, to hear his gasping groan. He chuckled, and his heart was in his laugh. “For the moment.”


End file.
